“I’m not saying that white people are better. I’m saying that being white is clearly better.”
-Louis C.K
Cheryl Harris’s composition “Whiteness as Property” puts forth an understanding of property starkly different from many of the readings we have done thus far in the semester. Harris elicits both a traditional and more intangible value of “whiteness”. Historically, whiteness has contributed to a racialized conception of ownership. Property ownership was contingent on racial identity, as for many years only white people (men) could own property. Moreover, some racialized bodies were even considered property, most obvious being the enslaved African Americans in the US. As such, whiteness allowed both ownership of property and protected those considered white from becoming the property of others.
Harris also argues that the law has been a crucial tool in upholding and protecting the wealth of privileges associated with whiteness in the United States: “Whites have come to expect and rely on these benefits, and over time these expectations have been affirmed, legitimated, and protected by the law” (Harris 1713). To elucidate this point Harris provides the example of the court case Plessy v. Ferguson. One of Plessy’s attorneys argued that by consigning him to the “colored” car even though he was seven-eighths white, the state law mandating this separation deprived him of the “most valuable sort of property . . . the master-key that unlocks the golden door of opportunity.” (Harris 1748). Therefore, whiteness was also a reputational interest that bestowed owners with certain privileges founded on a public conception of their identity and personhood. The access to such entitlements was itself valuable property.
Whiteness also functioned as traditional property by conferring “the right to exclude others” (Harris, 1731). This exclusionism is foundational to making whiteness what Harris describes as, “an exclusive club whose membership was closely and grudgingly guarded” (Harris, 1737). A destructive cycle has emerged in which those in power then, almost exclusively white Americans, have perpetuated this phenomenon up to the present. Although education is thought to break the bonds of race and class, biases in the culture of schooling itself and the rising cos of private education often run counter to these efforts.
I have worked in the corporate world the last three summer at a consulting firm, a big pharma company, and most recently at an investment bank. It is only after reading Harris’s composition that I look back and realize just how little diversity existed in the office. While it widely known that the majority of corporate executives are white males, it is odd to see (at least in my limited experience) that this also appears to be the case for interns and entry-level positions. This pattern appears to subsist, despite apparent efforts and initiatives to increase diversity in the corporate world. Even more, there is a growing, falsely-founded belief that our society is almost post-racial. Harris’s article is needed today just as much as it was back in the early 1990’s. The power of whiteness lies in its invisibility, and that fuels the perpetuation of systemic racism. It is that quality that often allows the issues described in “Whiteness as Property” to subside to the periphery of people’s mind.
Have you read the famous Ta-Nehisi Coate’s article “The Case for Reparations”? I’m linking it here: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/ I think Coates’s more recent exploration of the ways in which our legal system has rewarded whiteness and punished Blackness in ways that have material repercussions makes some of your points hit home even harder. A lot of Coates’s research actually borrows from another book by historian Beryl Satter called Family Properties. The most important realization you have made from reading this essay, I think, is how invisible white privilege is even to those who have it. This is the same for gender and to some extent sexuality. In terms of the latter, part of the argument for same-sex marriage was that our system of taxation in the U.S. actually rewards marriage and penalizes those who are unmarried. A certain kind of economic citizenship and privilege is obtained through marriage that, up until same-sex marriage was ruled constitutional, excluded couples who could not marry. Of course, some queer theorists, particularly Lisa Duggan at NYU, argued that the focus on marriage benefits distracted us from the fact of a legal and economic system that penalized ANYONE who did not participate in heterosexual marriage. This is all to say (as Hardin does in a later reading) that our systems of governance, whether they are in the law or the economy, incentivize some ways of being in the world and penalize others. The one way of being that always comes out on top, though, it seems, is to be a white male. And it is this identity that is becoming increasingly visible in political discourse and, if we watch the news, increasingly violent as a result. Indeed, even Louis C.K. seems to have capitalized on his whiteness and maleness, no matter how liberal and “woke” he seemed to be, no?
Like you, I was particularly struck by Harris’s argument that whiteness constitutes traditional property in the sense that it confers “the right to exclude others.” Harris elaborates, noting that whiteness has historically been “an exclusive club whose membership was closely and grudgingly guarded.” In recent years, and especially since Trump’s election, we commonly hear of the crisis of the white American male. In 2000, Sally Robinson published “Marked Men: White Masculinity in Crisis,” a text that analyzed this cultural moment through the prism of gender studies, but there are more recent examples that emphasize whiteness more than they do masculinity, like the New York Times’ “Behind 2016’s Turmoil, A Case of White Identity.” There, journalist Amanda Taub writes, “Academic research suggests that other economic and social transformations unfolding at the same time have led many people to anchor themselves more fully in their whiteness — even as whiteness itself has lost currency.” In an age of uncertainty, where people feel stripped of their social and economic capital, they are eager to protect their whiteness as property (and therefore capital) and defend against trespassers, who might seek to destabilize or infringe on that property. It would be interesting to see how young white nationalists express their outrage through the language of possession and property.
I really liked reading this post because I think you did a great job at not only analyzing the words of Harris but also adding your own personal experience of the “whiteness” of society. When reading this piece, I, too, was shocked by the blatant racism and loss of opportunity people of color face. I especially like how you point out that this idea of “whiteness” being better is still relevant today. Personally, the most thought-provoking part of your post was when you described Harris’ response to the Plessy v. Ferguson court case. By saying that, “the state law mandating this separation deprived him of the ‘most valuable sort of property…the master-key that unlocked the golden door of opportunity’” you are calling out the disproportionate access people of color and people not of color face. In addition, by adding your own personal experience in regard to lack of diversity in the work place, you did a great job at connecting Harris to not only conceptual ideas but also real worlds issues that we face today. Furthermore, your conclusion that “the power of whiteness lies in its invisibility, and that fuels the perpetuation of systemic racism” perfectly sums up not only Harris’ argument but also your own. Great job!